And so it begins...

It has actually become very difficult to write about Newcastle United. The problem is simple, we just don't know what is going on. Even rumour-fuelled discussion is fairly limited and where there are signals of things to come, they are completely mixed. Sometime last week, today was billed as potentially THE day that everything would become clear - a serious takeover proposal would emerge and Alan Shearer would retake his place in the hotseat. As it stands, the players, all of them (bar a couple of late internationals) return to the club for pre-season training today. A few seasons ago, the thought of some of those has-beens and useless tw*ts turning up for a day's work in the second division would have been laughable, but hopefully they have suitably lowered their self-opinion to fit a league that they thoroughly deserve to be in.

Many people will stand by their big, expensive names and blame the loss of Keegan and the loss of leadership through Hughton and Kinnear. Some people will even blame Alan Shearer. Some daring souls have heavily criticised the tactics employed by our old Number 9, writing them off as pragmatic failures. To be honest, at least he tried. No fit left-back? Play three at the back. It is basic stuff. Shearer and Dowie may not be master tacticians - but hell you would have thought that the third largest wage-budget in the world's top league could get you players that can pass to feet rather than out-of-play or perhaps even take a decent corner or freekick. Relegation was confirmed long before Shearer arrived on the scene.

Stan Collymore wrote the article "Why Newcastle will be relegated - and turn to Alan Shearer to get back up" for his football column in the Mirror at the beginning of March of this year.

"Newcastle have lurched from crisis to crisis this term, and have only won once in 12 games. Looking at their tough run-in of fixtures, they are going to go down without a shadow of a doubt."

"The first thing he (Ashley) will do is get rid of Joe Kinnear, Chris Hughton and Colin Calderwood - allowing Alan Shearer to ride to the rescue."

Not a bad guess (read the full article here). And so here we are on, in some respects, the first day of the new season and we're in a right old mess. I'm a little scared. Title-winning season, title-winning season...